ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the role of lower classes in national populist movements and regimes both in the Latin American context and in comparison with the European experience. The urban working-class culture created under early capitalism was alienated from national society; socialism, internationalism, and anarchism were the most appropriate ideologies for the more advanced sectors of the working class. A powerful image of class political alignments was thus incorporated into the political culture of many European countries. Populism itself tends to deny any identification with or classification into the Right/Left dichotomy. The connection often established between lower classes and leftist and internationalist ideologies is a historical product peculiar to certain Western European countries and not to a universal law. All multiclass movements that include large lower-class support usually include specific populist ideological traits. Social development involves first, the extension of the modern way of life to a growing proportion of the people living in the most favored areas.
